Early Congress and British

First Published: October 18, 2011 | Last Updated:November 22, 2013

The idea behind these reasonable demands was to put a national character to the British Government of India. The methodology of the early Congress leaders was limited to pass resolutios and prepare petitions to be sent to England.

The British Committee of INC was founded in 1889 and in 1890; this committee started a journal called India.

Thus we see that initially the Indian National Congress wished to achieve the Indian Objectives within the British Empire. But in the due course, Congress became the focus and fulcrum of Indian Nationalist aspirations and it was in 1929, when independence was kept above all the other goals.

Initially the objectives were limited and it worked with the constitutional limits. But still it was being looked with suspicion with the by the British.

When Congress was formed, the secretary of state for India was Earl of Kimberley, who served in this capacity from December 1882 to 9 June 1885. But when the Congress met for the first time on 28 December 1885, the Secretary of State for India was Lord Randolph Churchill, whose tenure was from 24 June 1885 28 January 1886, just 6 months.

After that Earl of Kimberley again became secretary of state for India and served in this capacity from 6 February 1886 to 20 July 1886. This question has been asked many times in examinations.

The demands of the Congress were ridiculed in the British Media. But it was Earl of Kimberley, the Secretary of State for India who somewhat supported the reasonable demands.

Lord Dufferin initially did not take Congress much seriously. Then, there was a blast and all of a sudden a Pamphlet appeared titled “The Rising Tide“. Another pamphlet appeared titled “An Old Man’s Home“. These were agianst the British and Lord Dufferin took no time to react and express objection to these mischief.

He initially called Congress as representative of “microscopic minority of India” but later in the fourth session of Allahabad, the Government servants were disallowed to take part in the proceedings of the Congress.